Masterchef Australia – Did Donovan Cooke Throw The Challenge?

by Reality Raver

Donovan Cooke threw the immunity pin challenge. Well that is my opinion. He threw the challenge but in a way that would allow him to keep his cooking integrity in tact. As who wants to be beaten by a Masterchef contestant?

Donovan was making a Barramundi with Seafood with a Broth . He plated it up five seconds late saying he would not put undercooked fish on the plate.

Would five seconds really have affected the fish that much? Considering it sits there for a while before it is tasted? Hell Laura’s fish was apparently five seconds over and she got two nine out of tens for her dish. This was interesting in itself as Matt had basically poked and prodded his over cooked portion of his fillet.

So the pantomime/farce continued with instead of the waiter taking the dish into the judges it was Donovan who went and saw them telling them what he had done and saying they would be unable to taste the fish or broth. Why the waiter could not tell the judges this was unclear. Or were they ensuring that the judges knew he had thrown the challenge?

The judges gasps and hands over their faces in shock was over the top.

In the end the judges decided they could not taste anything of it because the broth covered everything. This was bollocks as well but it allowed Laura to win with no impact or humiliation for the professional chef.

To try and ensure that it did not look like Laura won on a sub-standard dish the judges were talking her pan fried Snapper with Fennel and Orange Salad up saying how fabulous it was. Let’s face it both George and Matt were poking around the fish fillet. And even though she scored two nine’s this simple dish but even the most deluded viewer would be hard pressed to believe it would beat Donovan’s more complex dish. .

Three positives from the episode for me was that I thought Marco’s mentoring was good and Kylie Kwong should provide more advice and support when she is in this role. I think Laura is a very talented cook and out of a lot of the contestant’s left standing she is one person I am not unhappy about seeing the immunity pin on worthwhile just to see the looks on the other contestant’s faces when they realised she had won. This was priceless. Emelia looked like she was sucking on a lemon. Put it this way not even bestie Georgia was jumping up and down with joy.

Also could Amy stop yelling out advice to the chefs from the peanut gallery I think Donovan knew he only had to cook one serve of the dish.

Were the producer’s involved in this fix? Who knows? Does it make Marco look like a super mentor by his charge beating a former employee? Or are Donovan and Marco just too old softies who like Laura and think she has some talent that should be nurtured.

What did you think of the episode? Should they get rid of the immunity pin episode all together?

True to form, Emelia tries to scapegoat another contestant, Tash delivers for her team yet again, Amy’s instincts are right once again, repeating Marco repeats and I’ll leave the last one for you to work out.

Looks like they’re trying to bring back the humble Emelia character back. Not sure that I like it.

I just saw a promo for tomorrow. Don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t seen it, but seriously wtf? Can’t compute.

Hmm, I kind of lost interest in MCA and also House Rules (maybe it was because the second season of Orange is the New Black was so fantastic with one of the best season finales ever – which did not even need a cliff hanger, take that, Shonda Rhimes!).
I watched the episode this morning and it was sooo clear from the start that Laura will win tonight. She’s a lovely young woman and I think she is talented and I feel bad for her that she was the one who was put into the centre of attention of such a badly scripted episode. The look on the gasping judges’ faces was worse acted than Anna Paquin in True Blood (True Blood is the epitome of over acting, maybe the producers used it as a reference for the judges).

I was really looking forward to this season, hoping the show can redeem itself. Oh well, it did not. Was the win of Emma Dean last season already totally ridiculous, this year it was worse on the expense of a 19 year old. Overall it appears that the producers don’t invest much love into the show. Every year had a somehow creative intro to that awful Katy Perry song (I still don’t get the connection of that song to a cooking show). Giving the contestants nice and short features. This year they seem to have used some montages directly from several episodes (Jamie and Rachael for example). Even the staged montages were bad. It’s still better than MKR but then again, I don’t watch any reality TV show worse than MKR (thanks CB for that link^^).

CB@45 Interesting read. I wonder if Laura winning the immunity pin by default will make it into the reality TV hall of shame.
And now I am wondering if those guys hiding in the back of a truck on Customs last night were just actors. Or if JJ doesn’t even have real cases, real people.

And I think Dr Phil is reallly Pop Pop (the crooked patriarch) from Arrrested Development.

Tonight’s episode – the red team clearly won, very obvious.
Their entrees were better, Jamie rescued one of the main courses from potential disaster, Amy’s parsnip soup was a winner, and Renae did a better job captaining the red team than Emelia.
Epic fail from Emelia, boy the arrogant one was brought right back down to earth with a massive thud.
The only blue team members who performed up to standard were Tash and Brent.
Who goes home tomorrow night? Colin or Kira, the promo tends to suggest. 2 people cook spectacular risottos, someone else makes a risotto without rice.

For all the talk of this being the best batch of cooks yet, there’s really not a lot of diversity. Despite being a British challenge, the team menus read just like any other day in the MasterChef kitchen.
Except I guess for Laura, who was probably dying to replicate one of her nonna’s recipes. Another time, Laura. Another time.

Glad red won because wanted Emelia shut down. Once again the comment about her being dessert queen (this time from Tash). Of course she is not. Didn’t know the gelatin ratio and, unfortunately, Tash listened to her but at least Tash has smarts and was able to correct the error and save the dish. Emelia claimed how organized she was and how she led her team to victory when she was capt. before and yet struggled w/ ideas for dishes in this challenge. Seemed to blasé about things when MPW directing her regarding issues. Just thinks too much of herself and her ability. Good to be confident but sometimes there’s overconfidence.

Also, if MPW has such a good eye why were dry pork and undercooked bangers sent out? In a real restaurant situation with him overseeing the pass, would this have been missed?

Brent must be the Jonathan Daddia of 2014 – I recall Jonathan never winning any team challenge in the 2010 series.
From the promo: Kira in trouble, Colin says it might be his last ever cook in the Masterchef Kitchen.

hello laura is a great cook and her fish was over cooked thats why she got one 8 and two 9’s.if her fish was cooked perfect she would have got 10’s.he did not through it, rules are rules and coz he did not plate up in time he looses.bt even if he did plate up in time laura still wold have won.i am a qualified chef and i have eaten at donvan cooks restraunt and i hink its over rated and crap.so he would of scored 7s even if he did plate in time, so everybody get over urselfs and se laura win masterchef 2014